Monday, February 25, 2008

Public Employees Going Private

The TES has been talking to some of the thousands of state school teachers who send their own children to independent schools.

For obvious reasons, many of them won't talk, but this is John, a primary deputy head in Norfolk:

“People say to me: ‘How can you teach in a state school if it is not good enough for your own child?’, but what I choose to do for a job shouldn’t come into it. Nobody has to bring their child to the school I work in; they go to the school they think is best, whether they have to pay for it or not. I know some people find it difficult, but I’m not going to give my daughter a poorer quality of life if I can help it.I think I’m a good teacher, but I wondered whether I was good enough for my daughter. She goes to French club and knitting club, there’s a computer club and sports clubs, swimming and karate. She wouldn’t get that in a state school. She has developed and become more confident and can sit and read Harry Potter books. I can’t prove that wouldn’t have happened in the state sector, but I doubt it.”

Andrea Caish, an ex-head at a state primary in Gloucestershire, says:

“We weren’t happy with the large classes in state schools... we felt [our daughters] were drowning. One year the school had a mixed class, and as Victoria and Alex are only 18 months apart they were both in the same class, which we didn’t like too much. You are reduced to the level of the lowest in the class and if a child doesn’t behave then everybody suffers.”

Sam, a state school teacher in Kent, says:

"It went against my politics and it was something I wouldn’t have dreamt of considering a year or two earlier, but you have to be realistic. They’re your kids and you want the best for them, so you compromise your principles.”

We don't know how many state school teachers do this, but a couple of years ago the TES polled 700 of them, and a quarter admitted they would if they could afford to.

A vote of confidence in state provision it ain't.

Things are no better in the NHS. Last month we learned that 31,000 NHS health professionals have joined a cut-price Bupacare private scheme, including 12,000 doctors (5% of the UK total) and 15,000 nurses (2%).

"This demonstrates a lack of confidence in the NHS services they are providing if they won't take it themselves."

Er, quite.

So is it hypocrisy?

As very well informed consumers, they're making the rational choice for themselves and their families. And we can hardly hold that against them.

But as with Ruth Kelly and Diane Abbott, there is one teensy caveat.

Although they can quite reasonably go on earning a crust in the public sector, they do owe it to the rest of us to get out there and start arguing for the same choice to be extended to those who are not so well placed.

Because while we plutocrats, NHS GPs, and state school teachers can pay for private services on top of our taxes, most people simply cannot afford to do that. For the vast majority, our dysfunctional top-down public services are all that's on offer. And they are blocking the path to improvement.

PS How many MPs have their children privately educated? We don't know for sure but it's obviously loads, including all those notorious Labour hypocrites. But Labour MPs are locked into their hopeless Stalinist ideology and so the real world is always driving them to act immorally - it's the nature of the beast and we all surely understand that. There's no such ready excuse for Tory MPs. They're supposed to believe in small government and personal responsibility. So when they send their kids to private schools, they are morally bound to extend comparable choice to ordinary parents.

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